Ash Wednesday Service

February7th,2013

Begin the journey of Lent on Ash Wednesday in the Fireside Room when we come together for a gentle, meditative service (Feb. 13 at 7:30 p.m.) to help us prepare for the journey ahead. The mood is both solemn and expectant because Lent is a journey to wholeness, to new beginnings born out of the ashes of yesterday. We sit together in a circle, reflect in silence, sing simple chants, meditate on the Scriptures, and ponder the meaning of our life’s journey. It is a service of renewal and hope, of acknowledging our brokenness and our yearning for wholeness, of letting go of the things that keep us from being fully alive to God’s grace. It is the embarkation point for a Lenten journey that leads to Jesus’ passion and death but ends in the promise of new life at Easter. It is a journey of defiant hope.

Theme for Lent:Defiant (Irrepressible) HopeHungering and Thirsting after RighteousnessLife and LoveJustice and CompassionScattering the Seeds of Hope in the Soils of Despair

Does not the fast make great the anticipation of the feast?Does not the drought make great the anticipation of rain?Does not the planting of the seed make great the anticipation of the harvest?Does not suffering and death make great the hope of new life?

Through music, scripture, poetry, reflection and meditation we will contemplate what it means in the words of the poet Rubin Alves to “live by the love of what we will never see.” To plant dates “even though we who plant them will never eat them.” This is the defiant hope of prophets, reformers, parents, teachers, and all those who understand that “suffering and hope must live from each other” opening “the way to freedom and resurrection.” (“Tomorrow’s Child” by Rubin Alves).